


Becoming More

by DancingFlame



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Asexual Character, Awkward Flirting, Awkwardness, Courtship, How does an ex-spirit romance an ex-Templar anyway?, I fixed the hole in Cullen's roof, I'm Sorry, Language of Flowers, M/M, More tags will be added as the story is updated, On Hiatus, There should be a way to fix that in the game, Who lets their Commander sleep in a room with a hole in the roof?, everything is awkward
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-10 16:57:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4399937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingFlame/pseuds/DancingFlame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fic is on hiatus. Sorry.</p>
<p>There is something that makes Cullen special. Cole isn't sure what but, between the way Cullen is haunted by his past and the way he always puts others before himself, the two have a lot in common.</p>
<p>If only Cole could find a way to get Cullen to like him back, then maybe he would see it too.</p>
<p>Alternative description: How does a Fade Spirit with the face of a hedge mage court a former templar turned military commander heavy with the weight of the world? Very poorly as it turns out. Cole, sweetheart though he is, is skilled at soothing the pain of others, not acting on feelings of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Haven

**Author's Note:**

> This a fill for this kmeme prompt http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/14591.html?thread=55176703#t55176703  
> I saw the prompt and it was the most perfect and wonderful thing ever and I NEEDED it. Except the prompt had been up for a month and no one had filled it yet. So I figured that I would give it a try.

Haven was harried, hurried, all hustle and bustle. Cole wanted to help. He tried but he was distant, distracted. His mind kept going back to Cullen.

Cullen’s blood sang. A lullaby of lyrium. It should have sung the same as other Templars. Heavy with forgotten songs, like Varric. Some of them were too loud. It was hard to stay near them. Not Cullen, Cole liked to be around Cullen. Cullen was softer, but demons had asked questions that hurt him. 

That was why he didn’t like Cole. Cole had tried to talk to Cullen, tried to help, to figure out why his song was different from the others. Cullen had not been happy. He thought Cole was a demon. Cullen didn’t believe that he wanted to help. Fear hidden in hatred, he pointed his sword at Cole. Prepared to kill him if he didn’t, “Go. Away.” _Demons deserve to die._

Cole made him forget. He would have to find another way to help.

He overheard Cullen thinking about whether there were enough soldiers, wondering if they could keep Haven safe, if the hole in the sky could be mended, if he could send out recruiters without making the Inquisition look desperate. Cole could do something about that last one.

Over the next few days Cole convinced several people to join the Inquisition. This wasn’t just helping Cullen, this was helping the people too. There was food and armor and weapons for recruits. They would help defend their home. The Inquisition was good thing. Now he was doing it too. The “Inquisition” wasn’t a thing. It wasn’t real unless it had something real to make it but it does have something real to make it. If enough people believe in it then it becomes real, like a spirit.

\-------

After Cullen stopped worrying about having enough people he started being annoyed at all the people coming to him for help with inconsequential matters. Cole stated intercepting people. He helped those he could and redirected those who needed help he couldn’t provide. There were others who didn’t really need help, they just wanted to complain. Cole sent them to Cassandra. They wanted to talk to someone in charge. She wanted to yell at people. Both sides got what they wanted.

Later, when Cullen was talking with Lavellan, he heard Cullen tell her, “Trust Cole if you will, I would rather he stay away from me.” 

Cole’s heart sank. Cullen still feared-hated him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I welcome constructive criticism, this is my first time writing fanfic so I openly admit that my writing has issues. Oh and if you like this then you should leave a comment. I love comments. I don't care what you say. You can just leave "<3" and you'll still make my day. But if you actually say something I'll be even happier.


	2. In Your Heart Shall Burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, this chapter switches to Cullen's pov (as much as a third person fic can change point of view.)
> 
> Somewhere along the way I got hopelessly confused and mixed up whether Lavellan sided with the Templars or the mages so there are bits from both mixed up in the fic. I’ve decided that this is actually because Lavellan wanted to side with the Templars because she has the same opinion of mages as Sera but she also has the same opinion of nobles as Sera… So no nobles came with them to see the Templars. Which meant that the Templars wouldn’t let them in. Cole noticed them and decided that he could help them better than he could help the Templars. Then he got distracted by Cullen.

Cullen watched as Cole helped an injured Chancellor Roderick to a chair. He spotted the Harold, jogged up to her, and tried to see if she was okay while he explained the situation. She was covered in blood, but he couldn’t tell how much of it, if any, was hers. Cole interrupted with how the dragon looked like an archdemon. He glared. _A demon_ would _recognize an archdemon._ “I don’t care what it looks like. It’s cut a path for that army. They’ll kill everyone in Haven.”

Then Cole said something and Lavellan offered to sacrifice herself for the people of Haven. Cole spoke before Cullen could protest. A small part of Cullen was grateful. An even smaller part felt guilty for being grateful; he didn’t see any tactic that would make this survivable. Cole finished what he was saying with, “I don’t like him.”

“You don’t like-” Cullen broke off, that sentence wasn’t even worth finishing. He turned to the Herald and finished explaining the situation as he saw it. They were going to die. They were trapped. The only choice they had was if they wanted to die fighting. Cullen could see the shift in her eyes when Lavellan accepted that she was about to die, but die fighting. He was glad that he had the opportunity to die by her side.

Everything changed when Roderick spoke up. Suddenly there was hope. Everyone could survive. Except the Herald and whoever went with her. He wished that there was something he could tell Lavellan that would stop her from sacrificing herself, but he knew better. She reminded him of another elf he had once known, Surana, the Grey Warden who had sacrificed themself to end the fifth blight. He wished he could go with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene takes place during a cut scene (you probably noticed) and I didn't want to just transcribe the scene with my bits added because that would be annoying to read for someone who is already familiar with the scene. So here is a link to a video of the cut scene if anyone wants it. Start around 9 minutes in and go to 12:08, pretend the Harold is an elf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvKSdiNvlfI


	3. The Dawn Will Come

Haven was destroyed. Black and buried beneath the pure white snow. Many people needed help. There had been nowhere to go. Then the elven mage had helped. He knew of a castle, found in the fade, it would be a good place.

Happiness and hope hummed inside, turned into humming outside, then singing. The nightingale joined in. It helped heal the hurt of Haven’s loss. Cole did not understand the words. “One day soon the dawn will come.” Didn’t the dawn come every morning? 

It was a familiar song. More people started to sing. The singing reminded Cole of Cullen. He listened for his blood song, found it, moved closer. He made sure to stay shadowed. He didn’t want Cullen to know he was standing close. Didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. Cullen’s voice joined the song. 

“The singing outside is the same as inside. Slow, somber, sad. Hopeless in a way it shouldn’t be.” He hadn’t meant to speak aloud, didn’t know he had, but Cullen turned around at the words not part of the song. If Cullen saw him it would be bad. He had to go somewhere else, help someone.

Cole disappeared, appeared in the infirmary next to Chancellor Roderick. He had tried to stop a Templar. The blade went deep. He was going to die. Cole crouched next to him. Held his hand. He was dead. No one noticed. They kept singing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters look a lot shorter on here then they do in a word document.
> 
>  Anyway, I have most of the story plotted out already but I'm willing to listen to suggestions about what people want to see in the story. So if you have something you want to see (especially an awkward courtship thing that Cole would do) then tell me and I might just stick it in.


	4. Cake

It took days to reach the castle. Once they got there and people started settling in Cole couldn’t help but notice that the assault on Haven was still on Cullen’s mind.

The weight of lives lost lingered in his thoughts. He was used to leading Templars. People who had given their lives to the Order and knew that any day could be their last. Not civilians turned soldiers. Worst was how many civilians who _weren’t_ soldiers had died. Too many people died. He could have done better and they wouldn’t have died. 

He wasn’t eating. Cole wasn’t eating either, but that was fine. Cole didn’t need to eat, Cullen did. Cole had Sera give Cullen a piece of cake. It wasn’t easy. Sera didn’t like him. He had to stay invisible and feed her thoughts like her own to get her to do it. 

Cullen was stressed. He was hurting because too many people had died. Little people like her. He cared about the little people. He cared so much he wasn’t eating. People needed to eat, but if she tried to tell him to stop worrying and eat then he wouldn’t listen. She needed to show him that he did good so that he would keep doing good. She needed to give him food. Not a meal. That would be too obvious. She needed to give him something small, something sweet. A piece of cake.

After Cole convinced her he watched. She gave Cullen the cake and told him that he looked hungry. Cullen was suspicious of the cake. He didn’t eat it, but he did eat lunch. Later he had dinner too. He kept eating. 

Cole felt something warm in his chest. Different from how helping usually felt. He didn’t understand. Cullen was not more important than anyone else. People are not more important than other people. That was what Cole told himself. That was what he had told the Inquisitor. It was the truth. So why did Cullen feel like _more_ than other people? How could Cole get Cullen to feel the same way about him?

Cole wanted to ask someone but he… couldn’t. He was kindness, compassion, he helped people. People didn’t help him. That would be the wrong way around. He didn’t need their help. They needed his help. He needed to help people so that he could become more. Become something different from what he was at the White Spire. He can’t ask for help because that might undo the help he does. He can’t become that again. _He can’t._

He would just have to observe. See how other people felt. What they did when someone felt special. Copy them and see if Cullen liked him more.

The next day he overheard Varric telling a story about copper marigolds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another little chapter. As always comments are appreciated. :)


	5. Invasion of the Plants

Cullen left the early morning war room meeting and headed to his temporary workplace, already planning what needed to be done. His plans were forgotten as soon as he caught sight of his destination. 

A bush had been planted beside his desk. Right beside it. Or perhaps around it would be a better description. The thing was knee high with pink flowers and it looked like it was trying to eat the desk. No one could tell him anything about how it had gotten there. There had been no note and no one could remember seeing anyone in the area last night. Cullen tried to ignore the plant and focus on his work. 

By midday Cullen was fed up with the thing. It attracted more bees than a blood lotus and no matter where he tried to stand it was in his way. He sent a recruit to find someone who could tell him something about the damn plant. The elf from the gardens didn’t have any more of an idea where it had come from than anyone else. All she could tell him was that it was something called an azalea, for all the good _that_ did. 

\-------

Cullen was grateful castle cleanup had gotten to the point where he had an office with a sleeping chamber above it. Sure his bedroom had a hole in the ceiling and another hole in the floor but at least he was rid of that azalea. If only that had been the end of whatever was going on. 

When he had first moved into the room there had been a potted fern sitting on his desk. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there had been a note or if he could figure out who had left it. It was as impossible to trace as the bush had been. At least this he could move out of the way.

The next day a vine with purple flowers had appeared in one of the windows behind his desk planted in a box of soil hooked to the window ledge. The box was wider than the window Maker only knew how someone had managed that. Once again he couldn’t find out anything other than the plant’s name: Clematis. 

Two days later something called a “dew plant” showed up in his office in a bright yellow pot. In the middle of the day. While he was meeting with the war council. Still no one had seen anything. 

That was when the whispering got bad. Wherever Cullen went he could _feel_ people talking about him. The hushed conversations started when the first plant showed up but he had been able to convince himself that it was just his imagination, that surely people had better things to do than gossip about him. Now there could be no doubt. It was too regular of an occurrence. Cullen hurried to his office trying to ignore the muffled laughter of a young noble woman as he walked past her.

Damn this! His personal life was his own. People did not need to be discussing it. Cullen just barely restrained himself from sweeping the plant off the desk and smashing it into a wall. Didn’t he have enough to deal with without all this nonsense? Cullen growled and rubbed at the back of his neck. As if being commander of the Inquisition’s forces wasn’t enough on its own. Add to that trying to break his Maker-forsaken lyrium addiction and life was more than hard enough without mysterious plants invading his office! 

To make matters even worse some of his soldiers were forgetting to debrief after missions, forcing him to go through rolls of paperwork to find the information he needed to find the soldier and sort out the problem. And there was always a problem. Not a single soldier had good news for him after he went through all that trouble. Cullen looked around at the piles of scrolls and parchment scraps littering his office and groaned. If only all this paperwork would just go away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to post. I was trying to edit it together with the next chapter, but I've finally decided that it just gets too choppy and becomes a mess no matter what I do to it.


	6. The Language of Flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is Cole's point of view for the prior chapter.

Lingering in the library, looking, listening, longing. Cole ran his hand across a shelf of books so he could hear them better. There had to be something that could help.

When he found the book it wasn’t in the library. It was under the castle near the kitchen. The windowsills needed plums. He heard the book calling, sounding the way dirt tastes. Warm, fertile, fostering possibility. He picked up the small brown book. _The Silent Type: How to let plants speak for you._ It had helped before. A chest full of sunshine as a jonquil changes to a white carnation. Happiness bubbling into laughter and held hands in the meadow turning into tumbling in the grass becoming more than just tumbling. 

Azaleas stood for self-discipline. They meant “take care of yourself for me.” An azalea would be good for Cullen. But not a cut flower. That would be bad. Then it would die and what if Cullen didn’t take care of himself? He could plant one somewhere Cullen would see it, but what if he didn’t know it was for him? He would plant it beside his desk. That way Cullen would know for sure.

\-------

Cole couldn’t tell if Cullen liked the plant or not. It didn’t make him hurt inside so that meant he liked it? But it attracted bees and the bees were wary, watching, waiting to see if they needed to sting and Cullen was wary, watching, waiting for a bee to sting. That wasn’t good. Cole didn’t know how to fix that. Except, he couldn’t make the bees go somewhere else but if Cullen moved then the bees wouldn’t bother him. 

\-------

Ferns meant magic and fascination. They also meant confidence, shelter, sincerity. Cole thought of Cullen safe and solid, protecting and proud. Yes. A fern would be good but Cullen was moving to an office inside so he couldn’t plant it. A potted fern though, Cullen would like that.

\-------

A vine was a much harder plant to pot. It had to be where it could climb and see the sun and where Cullen would see it. That was complicated. He had to build a pot for the window ledge. Then he had to put it in Cullen’s office. That was hard. The windows were very narrow. He had to climb the tower from the outside. Then he had to go back inside to plant the vine. A clematis because Cullen’s mind was beautiful.

\-------

Cullen didn’t like the dew plant. Cole could feel resentment, but it wasn’t the plant’s fault. Maybe Cole should have picked a different plant? But he wanted to tell Cullen how pretty the song inside his head was, so it had to be a dew plant. It wasn’t the plant but the people. Cole hadn’t thought about how other people would react. Cullen didn’t like that they knew about the plants, but Cole couldn’t make everyone forget. Maybe he should stop giving Cullen plants. Just until the people stopped talking. 

Why was this so hard? The cook needed him to steal cheese. Healers needed plums in windows. A soldier needed turnips burned. A barrel needed daggers. Cole needed Cullen to like him. It was all helping. Helping wasn’t supposed to be hard. What did Cullen need?

Paperwork. Parchment everywhere. If only it would all go away. Cole smiled. That would be easy. The library had plenty of room.


	7. A Bad Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen is not having a good week. Drinks with Varric might make it better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 8/17: I added another scene to this chapter, it's now almost twice as long as it was. For those who read this chapter the first time, the add on starts at the scene break.  
> I'm going to try my best to have longer chapters from here on out but I make no promises.

The only good thing about the past week was that there hadn’t been any more plants. Cullen had spent the first day and a half tracking down all the parchment that had been stolen from his office. They had ended up in the library of all places and the bookkeeper had sorted them with the rest of the books. Maker knows why because there wasn’t a single book in all of Cullen’s papers. 

Once he had finally gotten the paperwork situation sorted out, it had started raining. The hole in his ceiling meant that Cullen had to sleep on the floor of his office to avoid the downpour and even then the water still made its way to the lower level by way of the hole in the floor. That wasn’t a problem. Cullen had slept in far worse places than a wet bedroll on the floor of his office. 

What was a problem was that someone had fixed the hole in his roof using materials that were meant for Skyhold’s lobby which had led to today’s unfortunate conversation with the Inquisitor.

“Hey, Cullen! Wait up,” Lavellan had yelled as he made his way back to his office after checking on his troops in the infirmary. He stopped.

“Inquisitor,” he said as she caught up to him.

“Josephine is mad at me because of you,” she said as she poked him in the chest and glared up at him.

“Pardon?” He had no idea what he could have done that would upset Josephine. Surely he was allowed to spend time with his troops.

The Inquisitor gave an exasperated sigh, “You got some of the people helping with the castle’s lobby to fix the holes in your room.” 

Fix the holes? He hadn’t told anyone to do anything about the holes. The only person he had even told was the quartermaster and that was just so he could get a bedroll. He opened his mouth to tell her that but she glared at him until he closed it. 

“Now Josephine’s upset because the renovations are running late and she invited fancy-pants nobles over for when it was supposed to be finished and now it isn’t going to be and she blames me for some reason," Lavellan continued. “ _I_ don’t care. Stupid nobles can deal with a castle that isn’t perfect. We have more important things to deal with. Josephine doesn’t agree. I figure _you_ can deal with Josephine since it’s _your_ stupid repairs that started this.” With that she shoved a roll of parchment into his hands and stormed off before he had a chance to say anything.

Cullen stared after her, stunned. He hadn’t known she was so fiery. It was another thing about her that reminded him of Surana. He shook his head to clear his mind of those thoughts. It wasn’t fair to think of Lavellan in that way anyway. He couldn’t offer anything more than friendship right now. Maybe he would never be able to again. Sometimes he wondered if— No. He shook his head again, determined to make these thoughts lose their hold on his mind. There was no point in thinking about what could have been or what could be when there was work to do.

\-------

When Cullen got back to his office after working things out with Josephine, Varric was standing beside his desk. “Hey Curly, we’re going out for drinks.”

“I don’t have time for this, Varric. I have work to do.”

“All this working is bad for your health. You look tense. You need some down time, relax a little.”

Despite Cullen’s protests he ended up going with Varric but, “Not to the tavern, please.”

Varric agreed, saying that he wasn’t planning on subjecting Cullen to the tavern’s swill, “even if it is better than what they served at the Hanged Man.” 

It turned out that Varric was a good friend. They ended up sitting on the balcony in Varric’s room looking out on the mountains as the sun sat. They talked about a lot of things, but what was more important was the things that they didn’t talk about. Too many people wanted to discuss the past and neither man was particularly fond of that topic.

Eventually the conversation landed on how things had gone with Josephine earlier. “Neither of us can figure out who would have done it. Or why they would have wanted to. It doesn’t make sense,” Cullen complained, taking a swig of his drink.

“Maybe it’s your secret admirer.”

Cullen choked on his drink. “Not you too,” he groaned after he finished coughing.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news Curly, but I don’t think there is anyone left in Skyhold who hasn’t heard the rumors about a secret admirer leaving plants for the dashing, young commander. There’s even a betting pool for who it is.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Afraid so. The most popular opinion is that it’s one of the kitchen maids, but-”

“Stop,” Cullen interrupted. “Don’t people have anything better to talk about?” Varric started to say something. “No, don’t. I don’t want an answer. Let’s just talk about something else. Anything else. I heard something about daggers being stolen, do you know anything about that?”

That was how they started talking about Cole. Apparently he wasn’t a demon but a spirit and he wasn’t really a spirit but a person. Cullen didn’t trust him any more now than when Lavellan had asked him how he felt in Haven but as the conversation went on he forgot to stay suspicious of Cole. 

“I can see why you wouldn’t trust the kid at first. After all you’ve been through I can’t blame you for not liking the idea of him. But you haven’t actually met him. Give the kid a chance, Curly. Talk to him one day and you’ll see.”

After that the conversation moved on to other things; a character in the book Varric was writing, the training regimens of the Inquisition’s soldiers, the Avvar chief who had launched goats at Skyhold. 

It was well past midnight when it was decided that they should probably go to sleep before the sun rose again. Varric looked appraisingly at Cullen and offered to walk him back to his room. Cullen turned him down; he wasn’t that drunk. 

He changed his mind when he saw the goats in his office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Cullen. You are not _that_ drunk, there really are goats in your office. I would give a time frame for when to expect the next chapter but I get the feeling that would jinx it. I've already started on it and it should be finished soon. 
> 
> Comment please! Comments feed my writing ability and the better fed my writing ability is, the more I write. 
> 
> And if the OP from the kmeme is here can they please tell me? I'm kind of worried that I lost them. Or they lost me. Whatever.


End file.
